


Better off

by kameo_chan



Series: The Ballad of Umino Iruka: Teacher [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Stand Alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-21
Updated: 2011-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-27 16:39:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/297889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kameo_chan/pseuds/kameo_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The life and times of Umino Iruka - Story #3</p><p>Iruka thinks that sex is overrated.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better off

Sex isn't really his thing, he comes to decide. He's eighteen, fresh-faced and finally past feeling gangly and awkward all the time. Fresh meat for the Academy, his senpai tell him jeeringly, but Iruka doesn't care. He wants to teach, to learn something new and no one will convince him otherwise. It's just as well that he has his career to fall back on, because his love life is, for all intents and purposes, nonexistent.

He's been with a girl or two since he made his promotion to Chunin, and he can't deny that it feels fantastic. He's still young enough that his hormones haven't really settled down yet, and the thought of supple bodies and smooth skin, of sweat and breathy moans is enough to get him rock hard in an instant. But he's capable of taking care of himself, and he's come to learn that there's no shame in a good wank.

No, he decides that sex isn't his thing because he hates the casual attitude most of his peers have towards it. Iruka has tried to have sex for sex's sake, and it leaves him feeling hollow and guilty each and every time.

"It's because you don't pay them enough," Genma tells him with a straight face during lunch, pensively chewing on the end of a senbon. Iruka idly wonders if he knows how much damage he's doing to the enamel, because teeth and stainless steel really aren't the best of friends. "I mean," Genma continues, "I get that you feel bad for paying, but a hole is a hole and if your dick fits, what's there to be ashamed about?"

Iruka scratches at the scar across the bridge of his nose, a habit he's picked up of late, and fidgets a bit. "It's not that I feel bad paying for sex. It's that I don't... I just don't like doing it with random strangers, is all." Even to his own ears it sounds incredibly lame, but the truth is the truth and it will always find a way out.

"Ah, you prefer some kind of emotional attachment right?" Genma comments sagely. "Some kind of deep spiritual connection, that it? That what gets your blood pumping? Red string of fate and all that."

Genma gives him a lecherous grin, waggles his eyebrows and forms a small heart with his thumbs and index fingers and Iruka turns red as a beet at that. "Fuck off, Genma-san," he mutters and picks up his tray to deposit it with the other used ones.

"Aw, now you've broken my heart. I would have waited for you!" Genma calls after him before bursting into a raucious round of laughter. A half an hour later, Iruka's ears are still red and his cheeks still peaky and he thinks that yup, he's most definitely over sex. His books are clutched tightly to his chest as he hurries to his next class and he's so caught up in thinking how over sex he is that he doesn't see the masked ninja until he slams bodily into him, scattering books and carefully penned handwritten notes everywhere.

"I - Excuse me, I'm terribly sorry," he babbles, all the while trying not to meet the other ninja's eye. He's eighteen yes, but eighteen isn't nearly old enough yet for social awkwardness not to be life-threatening and Iruka feels more the fool for it. But the masked man merely bends down and helps him retrieve his papers.

"It's no trouble," he says in a voice that is simultaneously flat and mellow. Iruka isn't sure, but he thinks the man is smiling at him. So he replies with a smile of his own, one that is not entirely devoid of coyness -- he would never have remained the firm favourite of many a sensei if he hadn't learned that a pretty smile could sometimes right any wrong -- and holds out his hand.

"Umino Iruka, Chuunin," he introduces himself, though he's not quite sure why. The man looks at his hand for a second and Iruka's smile falters a little. He has time to think that this was a mistake, just one more faux pas his conscience will never let him live down. But instead, after what seems like an eternity, the man grasps his hand and gives it a brisk shake.

"Hatake Kakashi, Jounin," he replies. It takes a moment for the name to sink in, but when it does, it hits Iruka like a blow to the back of the skull.

"Copy ninja Kakashi," he blurts out before his brain has time to filter the thought. "Oh shit," he blurts again and then clasps a hand to his mouth in horror. But Kakashi just laughs, rises and hands him the remainder of his scattered papers.

"The one and only. Well, I'll be seeing you, Umino-Chuunin. I need to get to the mission desk before the Third sends out a patrol squad to track me down. It was nice meeting you," he says and gives Iruka an over-the-shoulder wave while making his way further down the corridor.

"It was nice meeting you too," Iruka waves back and calls out after him before realizing that he's alone in the middle of the corridor and that he must look like a complete idiot, standing there with his papers a mess and a lone hand hanging uselessly in mid air. Hatake Kakashi, the Copy ninja, he thinks to himself. Well fancy that. It's only then that he notices how painfully close the hour and minute hands of his wristwatch are, and with a curse, Iruka is off again.

By the time he reaches his class, all thoughts of either the infamous Copy ninja or sex have been replaced by the nagging worry of whether he'll be penalized for tardiness.

\---

He will not remember their first encounter until years later, when the world is turned upside down and his attachment to a particular student causes him to request a personal meeting between himself and Naruto's new Jounin sensei. Even then, the memory is dim and dream-like and Iruka attributes it to false memory and hearing too many wild stories stories.

What he cannot deny though is that for some reason, the word 'sex' had lingered in his mind for days after their scheduled meeting.


End file.
